Me and My Catholic Faith

In one of my encounters with non-Catholics I was very much surprised when I heard from him his insinuation that Catholics are not Christians. How can any Christian denomination afford to say it?

Through my readings I've learned that one of the reasons why Catholics leave their faith in favor of other denomination is because of their inadequate knowledge of their Catholic faith, their willful negligence to know the dogmas and doctrines of the Church and the truth behind its existence.

During Good Friday procession

Let me share my father's teachings about Catholic.

Doing something without basis is fanaticsm and believing on something based on a mere opinion is ideology. Faith must be founded on truth. And the truth about religion can be attained through three important ways, namely the Bible, history and logic or common sense.

A. Bible is not enough.  (Please don't get him wrong, he values the Holy Bible very much) Not everything done by Jesus Christ is in the Bible ( John 21:25). So, where are which were not written? It is in the Church. Jesus Christ entrusted the truth to the Church to guide its members and sustenance of true teachings. He made the Church the foundation and depository of truth. (Tim 3:15-16) Which Church? The Roman Catholic Church, because its existence can be traced back to the days when Christ dwelt among men. Logic and Analogy - you can not deposit your money in a bank which is not yet existing, so when Christ deposited the truth, it was deposited to the Church which is already existing.

B. History. In order not to be confused and mislead, we must learn the history of our Church. We can not ignore "history" in search for truth. Questions like who founded your Church? when was your Church founded? who gave your Church the authority to teach, to preach, to baptize? are material facts to be learned as it will lead you to truth. The RCC was founded by Christ through Simon Peter (Mt 16:18) and He (JC) gave to Peter the key (or authority) of the Church (Mt 16:19). The giving of authority was directly declared or done, unlike the many nowadays who got their authority through "assumption". The authority was given to the Church through Peter. Anything which was given can not be taken back. Anything which was given can not be given again. From Peter the authority was transferred to Linus (2Tim 4:21) then to St. Clement (Phil 4:4) down to present Pope, Pope Benedict XVI. Are you surprised that even the immediate successors of Peter are mentioned in the Bible? Every Catholic must learn that the Pope is considered the Vicar of Christ. As such, Catholics must honor and respect him being made the visible head of the Church. This does not grab from Jesus the title of being the real head of the Church since Pope is only a member of the Church.

C. Logic or Reasoning. It is mentioned earlier that the Bible does not contain everything Jesus Christ taught and did on earth. Even the history of the Church is not written in the Bible. When we read "verses" in the bible, there are implied meanings which are not explicitly written as they are implied. We will be able to know which Church was founded by Christ using these verses through logic and reasoning.

This is what I like most in going home to Masiga. I love to hear my tatay's teachings.
Let's celebrate the Black Saturday Mass.

Boac Cathedral during our Visita Iglesia